


Pictures at an Exhibition

by sageness



Category: due South
Genre: Canon - TV, Community: ds_flashfiction, F/M, Gen, M/M, Multi-media
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-02-25
Updated: 2006-02-25
Packaged: 2017-10-03 16:57:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sageness/pseuds/sageness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fraser closes the space between them and begins to speak, but Ray waves a hand, shushing him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pictures at an Exhibition

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [the Paint challenge at ds_flashfiction](http://community.livejournal.com/ds_flashfiction/tag/paint+challenge). Many thanks to Isis for the beta!

**1\. **

 

"Oh wow!"

Fraser looks up from [Archipenko's _Reclining Torso_](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v214/sageness/archipenkorecliningtorso.jpg). Across the way, Ray has come to a halt in front of a painting of a cassocked priest shooting a peasant [in the posterior](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v214/sageness/goyapedro4.jpg). Fraser watches Ray examine it carefully, his eyes narrowing as if working on a case. Then, after reading the small plaque on the wall to the right, Ray backtracks and stands before the first piece in the series, studying the friar, the bandit, the rifle between them.

Fraser closes the space between them and begins to speak, but Ray waves a hand, shushing him. "Not yet, Frase. Let me see it first, okay?"

"Of course, Ray."

Ray moves from painting to painting, studying the cleric, the bandit, the background details, and then the cleric again. Cocking his head to the side, Ray says, "So, did I miss the part in school where they said that, back then, monks were like cops? Because I'm pretty sure I would have remembered that."

Fraser gets a little lost in Ray's expression, the line crinkling Ray's forehead, the purse of Ray's lips. Then the lips are moving, shaping Fraser's name and bringing him back to himself. "Ah," he says, and shakes his head. "No, Ray, Father Pedro seems to have been more of a one-time vigilante. Not an officer of the law, although as a priest, I'm sure the villagers looked upon him as—"

"Yeah, hello, raised Catholic here. I know about priests, okay?"

"Yes, of course," Fraser says, moving to the next panel in the sequence. "The bandit was known as Maragato, and he had plagued the countryside for quite some time. After his capture by Father Pedro, he was hanged, and then drawn and quartered."

"Like in _Braveheart_?"

Fraser frowns at that because the differences are too numerous to enumerate...and yet there is a certain similarity as well. Finally he answers with a simple: "Presumably."

"Huh." Ray examines the last three canvases again, lingering over the last image of the bandit bleeding into the dirt from his wounded buttocks. "So whose side was this guy Goya on?"

"I'm sorry?"

"Or maybe that's the point," Ray says, not turning his head. "To make you wonder if it's really a good thing for the priest to be sending the perp off to get executed, and that doesn't even touch the fact that the guy's tied up and bleeding from the ass."

"That's true," Fraser says.

"Maybe Goya's just saying what an ugly world it is."

"Sometimes."

"Huh?" Ray asks, looking in Fraser's direction finally.

"Sometimes it's ugly. Not all the time."

Ray shrugs, eyes shuttered.

"It's an ugly subject, but a beautiful painting."

Fraser watches Ray inhale deeply, rub his face with the heels of his hands, and shake himself like Diefenbaker just in from the snow.

"This stuff makes my brain hurt. I need coffee. Do they have coffee? They got a café downstairs, right?"

"Yes, they do," Fraser says. He's almost certain he knows what Ray's reaction is about, but Beth Botrelle has been free for two months now, and life, as Ray insists so frequently, goes on.

Ray doesn't offer any clues. He takes Fraser by the shoulder, moving him, and his voice is brusque as he says, "Come on, I'll buy you a milk."

 

**2.**

 

Ray spends a long time in the Impressionism wing. He figures he can. That's what you're supposed to do—stare, study, think. He likes [Magritte](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v214/sageness/time-transfixed.jpg) and [Van Gogh](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v214/sageness/09-Post-Imp_VanGogh_Self-Portrait-1.jpg) and [Cézanne](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v214/sageness/cezanne.jpg). He gets stuck in front of the damned Monet section, though, like it was his fault that Stella had bought a print of [_Water Lilies_](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v214/sageness/monet.jpg) for her dorm room back in freshman year, along with half the other girls on her hall. Only, she'd also gotten [_Houses of Parliament, London_](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v214/sageness/Monet_Houses-of-Parliament-1900-AIC.jpg) and [_Waterloo Bridge_](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v214/sageness/1984_1173.jpg), among others, over the years, and here they are in front of him, the _originals_, and they've probably been here all along, but no one ever told him.

It gives him a sick feeling inside that Stella probably knew. Maybe she even used to come here without him. Maybe this is her place, her alone-place, like the gym was always his. Except she always knew about the gym, and this. This, he never even knew was here.

Fraser's at his side, then, saying, "Everything all right, Ray?"

And Ray takes a deep breath and lets it out slow. "Sure, Fraser. Fine."

"You don't care for the Monet, I take it?"

Ray turns his back on the painting and pulls the museum's collection pamphlet out of his coat pocket. "Too girly," he says, flipping pages as he starts walking. "Let's go find the [Man Ray](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v214/sageness/1992_653.jpg) room."

"Man Ray, Ray?" Fraser asked, eyes twinkling.

Ray snorts. "Careful there, Frase. Someone might hear you making a joke."

Fraser catches up to him and murmurs into his ear, "I believe I'm in good handsRay."

Ray holds back a smile, eyes shining. "Percolator," he says.

Fraser blinks. It takes him a minute, and Ray grins at the delay, but finally Fraser notices the booklet in his hand and [the word half-hidden](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v214/sageness/manraypercolator.jpg) under his thumb. Ray starts walking again, feeling Fraser's eyes on his back, and he hears Fraser say, "Indeed."


End file.
